The Madras Players are the oldest

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

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theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

group in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, India. The Madras Players have staged over 240 theatre productions for more than 50 years.

History

The Madras Players has its origins from Kilpauk General/Mental Hospital in the Psychiatric Ward, a theatre group exclusively for the mentally disabled, that mounted comedies and bedroom farces in the early 1950s. In 1955, the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

first hosted

Robert Newton Robert Guy Newton (1 June 1905 – 25 March 1956) was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for hi ...

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Othello ''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cyp ...

'' which featured a mix of British and Indian actors. Shortly after, the Madras Dramatic Society closed down, and bequeathed most of their props and make-up equipment to The Madras Players founding members N. S. Yamuna and Gayathri (Grace) Krishnaswamy. The group members in the early 1960s included Thambi Kadambavanam, Ammu Mathew,

Girish Karnad Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the ...

, and Stewart Melluish. In their early days, the group staged British works from

Terence Rattigan Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

, Osborne with the help of directors like John Shepherd and Peter Coe and with constant support from the British Council. In the 1970s, they turned their attention to the newly available English translations of Indian-language plays, a venture which was well received by the audiences. Noted

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

director

translated his plays to English for the group, who also performed translated works of playwrights like Mohan Rakesh,

Vijay Tendulkar Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar (6 January 1928 – 19 May 2008) was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi. His Marathi plays established him as ...

and

Gurucharan Das Gurcharan Das (born 3 October 1943) is an Indian author, who wrote a trilogy based on the classical Indian goals of the ideal life. ''India Unbound'' was the first volume (2002), on artha, 'material well-being', which narrated the story of I ...

. Noted performers for the Players in this period include comedian Naushir Ratnagar, back-stage artist Mithran Devanesan and voice-artist P. C. Ramakrishna, who has been a member of the group since 1969.

Activities

The Players' notable theatre productions include adaptations of Vijay Tendulkar's ''Kanyadaan'',

Shreekumar Varma Shreekumar Varma is an Indian author, playwright, newspaper columnist and poet, known for the novels ''Lament of Mohini'' (Penguin, 2000), ''Maria's Room'' (HarperCollins, 2010) and ''Kipling's Daughter'' (AngloInk, 2018), the children's books, ' ...

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Midnight Hotel Midnight is the transition time from one day to the next – the moment when the date changes, on the local official clock time for any particular jurisdiction. By clock time, midnight is the opposite of noon, differing from it by 12 hours. ...

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Hayavadana ''Hayavadana'' (''meaning: Horse face'') is a 1971 Indian Kannada language two- act play written by Girish Karnad. The plot is based on Kathasaritsagara and Thomas Mann's retelling of Transposed Heads. Its twin play is ''Nagamandala'' (1988). H ...

''. The group's longest running play was the 2007 adaptation of

Chetan Bhagat Chetan Bhagat (born 22 April 1974) is an Indian author, columnist and YouTuber. He was included in Time magazine's list of World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Five of his novels have been adapted into films. Family, education, a ...

's novel ''

Five Point Someone ''Five Point Someone: What not to do at IIT'' is a 2004 novel written by Indian author Chetan Bhagat. The book has sold over a million copies worldwide. The films '' 3 Idiots'' and ''Nanban'' are based on the book. It was also adapted into a p ...

''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Madras Players, The Theatre companies in India Amateur theatre Culture of Chennai Organisations based in Chennai 1950s establishments in Madras State Arts organizations established in the 1950s